Sweeter for me (Joan Baez) (LP 989)

Joan Baez Gulf Winds (Vinyl, A&M Records, 1976) ** 

Genre: Folk 

Places I remember: Record fair in Waipukarau

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Gulf Winds

Gear costume: Time Is Passing Us By

Active compensatory factors: An interesting album in that all the songs are written by Joanie, and those songs were written during Dylan's Rolling Thunder tour - a time of great creativity for both of them.

Being Joan, it's nicely introspective, with a sly glance at Bob (O Brother is a nice nod and deliberate reference to Dylan's O Sister), and autobiographical at times - the title track is a good example.

The music is pretty standard fare, except for Gulf Winds which has Joan return to a guitar/vocal combo to telling effect. The simple arrangement of Time Is Passing Us By and Stephanie's Room are more to my taste than the mid seventies band arrangements.

So, all up, I'm afraid it's a bit meh: interesting with some peaks, but not as memorable as some of her other seventies albums.

Where do they all belong? I've had a surge of appreciation for Joan and I'm still collecting her albums - I'm particularly keen to find a copy of Gone From Danger.

Costafine Town (Splinter) (LP 986 - 988)

Splinter  The Place I Love (Vinyl, Dark Horse Records, 1974) ****

Splinter  Harder To Live (Vinyl, Dark Horse Records, 1975) ***  

Splinter  Two Man Band (Vinyl, Dark Horse Records, 1977) ** 

Genre: pop/ rock; Dark Horse Records 

Places I remember: George Courts' music bar (K Road); Marbeck's Records; Taste Records

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Costafine Town (The Place I Love)

Gear costume: Somebody's City (The Place I Love); Half Way There (Harder To Live)

Active compensatory factors: Splinter is a duo (Bill Elliott and Bob Purvis) with solid gold Beatle connections. Bill Elliott had already appeared on an Apple Records' single as Bill Elliott and The Plastic Oz Band doing a couple of Lennon songs.

After Apple Records folded George maintained his interest in Splinter - signing them to Dark Horse Records and he was all over the debut album - producing and playing loads of instruments. Somebody's City sounds like an outtake from All Things Must Pass (it's that good).

George drafted in a stellar crew of mates to play on the album - Alvin Lee, Billy Preston, Jim Keltner, Klaus Voormann and Willie Weeks. So - it sounds great. Bill and Bob contribute some memorable songs and sing well.  Costafine Town was a huge hit and deservedly so.

Second album, Harder To Live, follows the same blue print - snappy arrangements, nice harmony vocals, same George Harrison/Beatles lite sound, but limited participation from George this time (he only appears on one track). 

Although Half Way There is an excellent song, with a country/folk leanings, there was no big hit on this one.

Two Man Band, the third and final Dark Horse album for Splinter, was a good effort without being especially memorable. The presence of strings on a few tracks doesn't help but it's a melodic set of songs without any hit song being apparent. Still, if you want a pleasant soft rock album for those chill moments of an evening you could do a lot worse.

Where do they all belong? I haven't bothered with the albums after Two Man Band as they weren't on Dark Horse Records, nor did they get widespread distribution.

Love (John Lennon) (LP 985)

John Lennon  John Lennon/ Plastic Ono Band (various Vinyl and various CD formats, Apple Records, 1970) *****  

Genre: Beatle pop/ rock; Apple Records

Places I remember: DJ Records; JB Hi-Fi; Real Groovy Records

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Love

Gear costume: God

Active compensatory factors: Every song on this extraordinary album, my favourite album of all time, is, in its own way, a masterpiece.

It has an amazing after life too - its ripples continue outwards. Only last week I was in the Kinokuniya bookshop in the Dubai Mall buying a very expensive, very heavy book about this and Yoko Ono/ Plastic Ono Band (her 1970 companion album).

Imagine (the song and album) were my entry point, and I backtracked to find John Lennon/ Plastic Ono Band. I approached with caution because all the stories of primal screaming had me thinking this was an Avant Garde collection of screaming.

I still remember the shock of discovery - that this was brilliance unconfined. I was a Beatle fan and now it was in full focus: I was now a John Lennon fanatic as well.

Apart from the harrowing end section of Mother and Well Well Well, it's a calmly considered series of incredibly open and honest ruminations on love, life, relationships, and music. Everything important basically.

Only John Lennon could have written and performed these songs. That he did so at the end of the sixties after eight years of continual peaks and ground-breaking sounds and songs is nothing short of super-human.

Listening to it again now, I'm struck by how timeless it is. It's stripped back to essentials in approach too - just Ringo, Klaus and John for the most part. Absolutely - less is more.

Sequencing is perfect as well. There is a healthy mix of the visceral (Well Well Well, I Found Out) with the tender and loving.

Love, gentle and vulnerable, follows Remember. My Mummy's Dead ends the album - John's pain fully evident. The Mother/My Mummy's Dead tracks bookend the album - it's back to the start, back to the womb for John and he's freed up in the process.

Then there's this albums' A Day In The Life song - God. It's a new start, a newly reborn John that emerges from this song - reality- wow, what a concept!

Remarkable. Just remarkable.

The iconic cover is perfect as well. John and Yoko at Tittenhurst - together under that spreading tree. 

I commissioned my mother to paint the scene - and her result sits in my music room at Maple Grove. I treasure it for many different reasons but the calming influence of the painted scene stays with me wherever I am.

Where do they all belong? Imagine is next.

Down the line (Grateful Dead) (LP 982 - 984)

Grateful Dead with Duane Allman Fillmore East 1971 (Vinyl, Bootleg) ***  

Grateful Dead  The Closing Of Winterland December 31 1978 (CD, Grateful Dead Productions, 1978) ***  

Grateful Dead  Nightfall Of Diamonds (CD, Rhino, 1989) ****  

Genre: San Francisco rock

Places I remember: Spellbound Wax Company, Real Groovy Records and JB Hi Fi in that order.

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Down The Line (Fillmore East 1971); Fire On The Mountain (Winterland)

Gear costume: Friend Of The Devil (Winterland); Uncle John's Band (Nightfall)

NB: this review comes to you from London Town! I'm on holiday but my dedication to blogging forges ahead!!

Active compensatory factors: The Grateful Dead were predominantly a live touring band and they've left a huge archive of live recordings that keep getting released. It's hard to keep up. Forget hard - impossible.

I have a few. I have no idea how they stack against the rest of their live albums so this will be a very idiosyncratic summary of these three.

Starting with the bootleg that I got a few weeks ago from Spellbound Wax Company in Gisborne for $30. Duane Allman does actually appear as billed (I was a little suspicious when I saw the cover - but sure enough). It's a good quality bootleg - I have heard far far worse believe me!

The concert is prime '71 Dead - a little ragged at times, lyrical at others, spirited throughout!

By 1978 and the Winterland gig they were a different band and a lot more polished musically. This set benefits from having a lot of new material added to the set. The downside is that at 4 CDs in length it is way too long to digest in a single setting.

Kudos to the band though - they never short changed their loyal audience.

Nightfall of Diamonds is a live set from 1989 at The Meadowlands Arena and is tight and together. It's a great, balanced set of songs that show off the band's strengths. 

Where do they all belong? Will I buy more live sets by the Dead. Yes, I will. I have a few on my list that have been recommended by reviewers. You most definitely need a 'how to buy live albums by The Grateful Dead' to make sense of things. Plus, there are still some studio albums to come before we can let them rest in peace (see what I did there?).

Reachin' for a little bit more (The Marshall Tucker Band) (LP 977 - 981)

The Marshall Tucker Band   Dedicated (Vinyl, Warner Bros Records, 1981) ***  

The Marshall Tucker Band  Tuckerized (Vinyl, Warner Bros Records, 1982) **  

The Marshall Tucker Band   Just Us (Vinyl, Warner Bros Records, 1983) **  

The Marshall Tucker Band   Greetings From South Carolina (Vinyl, Warner Bros Records, 1983) **  

The Marshall Tucker Band   southern spirit (CD, Polydor Records, 1990) ***   

Genre: Southern rock

Places I remember: Amoeba Records, Real Groovy Records, Slow Boat Records

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Silverado (Dedicated)

Gear costume: Ride In Peace (Dedicated)

Active compensatory factors: This is the third and final edition of albums by these titans of southern rock. They hung in there longer than most and managed to live up to the brothers of the road vibe.

And so we enter the eighties, a tricky decade for bands who established themselves in the seventies.

Dedicated is the first album after bass player Tommy Caldwell's tragic death from a car accident. The band is intact apart from that and still aiming to produce that crazy good southern country swing that they do so well.

By this stage though, they appear more interested in a tilt at the adult contemporary music market, than staying true to their roots. While Doug Gray is involved it will always sound like TMTB. So, three stars for Dedicated.

It only cost me $1.00 from San Francisco's Amoeba Records (from their clearance bin). Criminal, but good for me. I suppose that sums up where the band was at in 2016 when I bought it, but it's better than a clearance bin.

Tuckerized comes in a clearance bin style cover (all the covers from here on in have a whiff of budget about them it must be said). Sadly, it's a trend of diminishing returns from here on, as the ten year mark hit. 

Toy Caldwell only contributes one song to this one and George McCorkle only has one as well, so they become increasingly reliant on outside material from this album onwards, and therefore less recognizable as TMTB. The band remained intact throughout though with Franklin Wilkie the bass man from Dedicated onwards.

Just Us and Greetings From South Carolina are okay but the splitting of the band after the leaning towards country on Greetings looked inevitable. Gray and Eubanks recorded an album with session musicians next, so I don't really regard Still Holdin' On as a true Marshall Tucker Band album.

Southern spirit (lower case denotes certain things - just sayin') is a good attempt to return to the class band's country rock sound, so they get an extra star for this one, but Gray and Eubanks are the only original members. Absolutely dire cover, it must be said.

As I said before, when Doug Gray sings it sounds like TMTB but the band of brothers has long since headed off toward the sunset by the early nineties.

Where do they all belong? I haven't had any great desire to collect albums after southern spirit because the band is pretty much The Marshall Tucker Band in name only, even though Doug Gray and Jerry Eubanks remained for a while. If I come across them, I'll probably be tempted though.

Jerry retired in 1996. I hope he's happily retired - his flute and sax added a huge dimension to that signature Marshall Tucker Band sound. 

That's also the end of the southern rock section of my collection.

Sweet springs (Israel Nash) (LP 975 - 976)

Israel Nash  Lifted (CD, Desert Folklore Music, 2018) ****  

Israel Nash  Topaz (Vinyl, Desert Folklore Music, 2021) ***** 

Genre: Country rock

Places I remember: JB Hi Fi (Wellington); Real Groovy Records (Auckland)

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Strong Was The Night (Lifted), Canyonheart (Topaz)

Gear costume: Rolling On (Lifted), Closer (Topaz)

Active compensatory factors: I discovered Israel Nash via a Mojo Magazine covermount CD. It was a good discovery!

Beautiful is not an adjective I use too often to describe an album, but it fits Lifted.

The sound, his singing, the slow-ish pace, the way songs start and build - all beautiful. 

Topaz ups the game a couple of notches. The production is a bit crisper, the singing a tad more confident, the musicianship a fraction more simpatico, the songs a sliver more memorable. I think it's a worthy 5 star Wozza country rock classic.

Where do they all belong? I'll be following Israel's progress from here onwards.